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A Pioneer Kid'sSCHOOL LUNCH
Just like children today, frontier students also had to have some type of school lunch. After all they would leave home just after day break and not return to late in the afternoon. Of course the schools of the old west didn't have a cafeteria, so all students were required to bring something from home for this school lunch time meal. Those that lived close enough to the school could go home for lunch. This privilage would often include kin and close friends if the frontier mom was so inclined to fix a 'warm lunch' for several children.
There were no plastic school lunch boxes or thermoses on the homestead. Western pioneer children often saved empty lard or syrup buckets for use as a lunch pail.
The light school lunch frontier children carried in their pail was generally similar to our sandwiches of today. They might be cornbread and syrup, or bread and lard, maybe with a little sugar. Or, or occationally even bread and bacon. It was a special treat to have a sandwich with meat in it. Some other items that were common for frontier children to find in their school lunch might be, boiled eggs, hardtack, and jerky. They would also see vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and onions; sometimes boiled but mostly raw. When foods that grew locally were in season, such as apples, nuts, and berries, they were often found in the frontier student's school lunch pail.
Water, tea, milk, and coffee, were the primary drinks in the old west. Since, coffee and tea, were not considered proper drinks for children and without refrigerators milk would spoil, water was the usual drink with lunch. Students took turns drinking from a dipper out of a bucket of water. The bucket had to be carried from the closest well and children took turns 'fetching' the water.
Did your great grandparents go to school in a ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE
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